Download Different Aspects of Intercultural Nonverbal Communication: A Study

CPUH-Research Journal: 2015, 1(1), 17-24
ISSN (Online): 2455-6076
http://www.cpuh.in/academics/academic_journals.php
Different Aspects of Intercultural Nonverbal Communication: A
Study
Saurabh Kaushal
1
School of Humanities & Management Sciences, Career Point University, Hamirpur (HP) INDIA
E-mail: [email protected]
(Received 05 July, 2015; Accepted 18 July, 2015; Published 03 Mar, 2015)
ABSTRACT: Communication is a dynamic and wide process with its ever changing roles of sending and receiving
information, ideas, emotions and the working of mind. Communication is not only a word but a term in itself with
multiple interpretations. Out of a number of forms, there are two very important kinds of communication, verbal
and non-verbal and the relation between them is inseparable. Non-verbal communication keeps the major portion of
the periphery occupied and in absence of it communication can never happen. In the era of caveman, just using
nonverbal communication could help to understand the other person, but in the complex society of today both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication are needed to fully understand each other. We start taking lessons in
nonverbal communication from the very starting of our life from parents and the society in which we are surviving.
There is a very common perception among people that for understanding any oral message we have to concentrate
and subsequently be able to understand the nonverbal elements, but in reality nonverbal communication is not as
easy to understand as it seems to be. Often it is misinterpreted and because of that wrong message is understood by
the receiver. Another widely accepted fact states that by focusing upon the body language of a person we can predict
how he/she feels about any situation. But all that varies from context to context, from culture to culture. Studies in
the field of nonverbal communication have well illustrated the fact. Since nonverbal behavior arises from our cultural common sense, we use different systems of understanding gestures, postures, and silence, emotional expressions, touch, physical appearance, and other nonverbal cues including personality. This paper focuses mostly upon
the basic understanding required to be taken into consideration while understanding non verbal elements along with
verbal elements in different cultural settings.
Keywords: Intercultural Communication; NVC in Politics; Factors affecting Cross-Cultural Communication; NVC in Gender.
INTRODUCTION: Nonverbal communication refers
to all that stimuli which takes place between people
communicating with each other both intentionally and
unintentionally. In an intercultural setting, successful
interaction depends not only upon the understanding
of verbal message but also equally on nonverbal aspects as well. One of the varied characteristics of nonverbal communication is that it is less systematic than
the verbal communication; it is culture-bound and
indistinct.
haviours such as body movements and positions.
Applbaum et al. (1979) describe the role of nonverbal
communication as the major resources of meaning
people obtain in communication. This view is also
supported by Mcneill (2000), who argues that nonverbal communication plays an indispensable role in the
process of face-to-face interaction.
Nonverbal communication is defined in many ways.
According to Burgoon, Buller, and Woodall (1989),
nonverbal communication is the unspoken dialogue
which involves the messages conveyed beyond the
words. Similarly, DePaulo and Friedman (1998) write
that "nonverbal communication is the dynamic, mostly face-to-face exchange of information through cues
other than words". Knapp and Hall (2006) specify the
three major components of nonverbal communication,
the communication environment, the communicators’
paralinguistic characteristics and the nonverbal be-
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With the development of globalization, intercultural
communication has become more frequent and more
significant than ever before (Wang, 2007). As an international language, English has played an important
role in facilitating the communication between people
with different cultural backgrounds. It seems that intercultural communication will be successful, as long
as the speaker has achieved high proficiency in the
language, namely English. However, it is indicated in
many studies that the failure or misunderstandings in
intercultural communication are largely caused by the
misinterpretation or misuse of nonverbal behaviours
(Arasaratnam & Banerjee, 2007; Ma, 1996). It is,
therefore, important to raise the awareness of the non-
[(CPUH-Research Journal: 2015, 1(1), 17-24) Different Aspects of Intercultural Nonverbal Communication: A S….]
verbal communication in the process of intercultural
communication.
around them. It also involves understanding the different cultures, languages and customs of people from
other countries. Intercultural communication plays a
very significant role in social sciences such as anthropology, cultural studies, linguistics, psychology and
communication skills.
There is well known saying, “actions speak louder
than words.” This statement further reinforces the
significance of nonverbal communication. Nonverbal
communication is very significant and noteworthy in
intercultural situations and its importance in our global society is quite evident. In our human relations,
two-third of the communication taken place through
nonverbal means. Because of the stated fact, the
chances of misunderstanding and disagreement regarding nonverbal communication are high due to
cultural differences because every culture differs from
other. Therefore, successful interactions in such situation depend largely upon a clear understanding of
nonverbal messages along with the verbal ones.
Nonverbal communication is one of the key aspects of
communication. It includes function, such as repeating, complementing, and contradicting a verbal message. For example, if a person is saying no to anything
and is nodding his head as yes, so in that situation the
verbal message is not matching with nonverbal one.
As a result, the other person listening will be confused
because there is no coordination between verbal and
nonverbal means. Apart from this, it also governs our
social and professional relations, such as nonverbal
cues conveying when we should speak and when we
should remain silent. Finally, it can even amend a
verbal message through mimics, gestures and facial
expressions, particularly when people do not share the
same language.
Nonverbal communication is hugely important in our
any kind of social or professional interaction because
people tend to look for nonverbal cues when the verbal messages are unclear or ambiguous (especially
when different languages are being used). “Since nonverbal behavior arises from our cultural common
sense, we use different systems of understanding gestures, postures, and silence, emotional expressions,
touch, physical appearance, and other nonverbal
cues.” (LeBaron, 2003).
Now as a fact, widespread population migrations have
changed the demographics of several nations and new
cultural identities and communities have been born.
All civilization depends upon each other for different
reasons. Therefore, the better our intercultural communication skills, the easier it will be for us to take
and mark our place in international global society.
Typically more interest is always focused on verbal
communication rather than nonverbal communication.
Unfortunately, as a result people make great efforts to
improvise their vocabulary but neglect nonverbal
communication cues. Therefore, it is important to
raise responsiveness of the nonverbal communication
in the process of intercultural communication. This
paper deals with some of the means of nonverbal
communication and ways of understanding and resolving the cultural disagreements and difficulties.
The main purpose of my study is to examine the role
of nonverbal behavior in the context of intercultural
communication. In particular, the study further identifies the importance of understanding and using nonverbal behaviour when living in an English-speaking
country.
Today the world doesn’t look that big and huge as it
seemed to be in the past. According to Y. Wang, people are forced to live in this global world. With the
increase of globalization, intercultural communication
has become more significant than ever before. (Wang
Y., 2007).
The term ‘intercultural communication’ was first used
by Edward T Hall in his famous book, The Silent Language. Hall has been universally recognized and
acknowledged as the founder and initiator in the realm
of intercultural communication. The Silent Language
has placed a serious emphasis on “nonverbal” communication, and a significant contribution of the book
was its discussion of unseen aspects of human communication, namely proxemics (how space affects
communication) and chronemics (how time affects
communication).
Intercultural Communication: Human beings draw
close to one another by their common nature but habits and customs keep them apart. (Confucius)
Intercultural communication is a form communication
that aims to share information across different cultures
and social groups. It is used to describe the wide range
of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and
educational backgrounds. In this sense it seeks to understand how people from different countries and
cultures act, communicate and perceive the world
Now frequent researches in the field of nonverbal
communication have swiftly increased over the last
few decades, and are quite relevant in business industry, media, international relations, education, and indeed in the realms of interpersonal and group dynamics.
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According to Shi-Xu, there are three significant positions that should contain a meaningful measurement
of intercultural communication. First, intercultural
communication should be judged at the level of social
acts and not just should base upon language interpretation. Secondly, intercultural communication is a
socially structured action or message, therefore the
meaning of communication cannot be diminished by
words. Thirdly, intercultural communication does not
make a room in power vacuum. Intercultural communication was situated in the context of imbalance of
power and inequality in resources, between the east
and the west, the north and the south, men and women, the minority and the majority.
sage was obvious: “Forget all these allegations; there
is nothing wrong here.” (Foster, 2000)
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton often bit his lip
when trying to appear emotional, such as when he
apologized for the affair with Monica Lewinsky. Did
that small gesture win him the public’s sympathy?
(See: www.bodylanguageexpert.co.uk/body-languagepoliticians.html)
The gesture dubbed as the “Clinton thumb” after one
of its most famous users, Bill Clinton, is used by politicians to provide emphasis in speeches. This gesture
has the thumb leaning against the thumb-side portion
of the index finger, slightly projecting from the fist.
This gesture was likely adopted by Clinton from John
F. Kennedy who can be seen using it in many speeches and images from his political career. (Mankiewicz,
2009)
Study of Non Verbal Communication in Politics:
In the contemporary international world, great attention and care is taken to bridge cultural differences
among world leaders whenever they meet so that it
could be ensured that nothing is missed, or misunderstood. Cultural differences have significant effects
upon diplomatic negotiations. If fail to understand and
appreciate these differences, then it can have serious
consequences for negotiations. Successful leaders
communicate effectively—not only with their words,
but also through nonverbal actions. Some politicians
understand the effect of body language on the public
and try to use it for their advantage. For example, a
politician who stares out into the distance during another speaker’s speech is subconsciously telling the
audience that he or she doesn’t think that the person
speaking deserves his or her attention. Even a smile
can give away a politician’s true feelings.
The current president of U.S., Barack Obama, also has
very interesting nonverbal behavior. One of the politicians characterized his body language as the following: “Obama is a good speaker, but his stylistic range
is pretty limited. His Style lacks the common touch of
Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton.
That’s a political problem for him.” However,
Obama’s success in leadership is sometimes attributed
to his use of appropriate body language, most notably,
his brilliant smile.
Studies show that people prefer more attractive speakers to less attractive. The other facial gestures that
work well for public speakers are three universally
understood ones: opening the eyes, raising the eyebrows, and nodding the head. President Obama, for
example, uses each of these gestures, but in particular
he is a great ‘nodder’. Watch any speech delivered by
him, and you will see him nod at the ends of phrases
and sentences. This has the effect of affirming through
body language to what his content is saying. It’s one
reason why we find him so convincing as a speaker
and president (Cost, 2008).
The most effective leaders always broadcast charisma
and confidence. They always connect with others and
arouse interest. They show emotions. They are labeled
as “visionaries.” Nonverbal communication has been
a critical component of American presidential debates
from the very beginning. In 1960, Richard M. Nixon’s
five o’clock shadow helped make him look pale, sickly, and thin. Michael Dukakis was criticized in 1988
for his lack of emotion and stiff posture. George H.W.
Bush looked at his watch during a 1992 debate suggesting impatience, boredom, or lack of interest.
Studies show nonverbal communication is the emotional meaning behind what is said. People react effectively to what they see, or to the tone of voice that is
used to speak the words they hear. Everything include
dress, the extent of physical space between the speaker and audience, hand gestures, body movement, mimics, and tone of voice can make or break a leader’s
message.
The Factors Affecting Cross- Cultural Communication: Culture directly affects the communication
process in an international setting through seven variables:
1. language
Similarly Clinton’s body language is one of the interesting fields for political researchers. His nonverbal
communication style draws many researchers’ attention. Let me reinforce my point with some examples.
Both Clinton and his spouse Hillary were masters of
nonverbal communication. When accusations were
made in the media, the president and his wife were
seen holding hands. When the fires of accusation were
made most intense, Ms. Clinton was seen publicly
leaning tightly against her husband’s chest. The mes-
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2. environmental and technological considerations
3. social organization
4. contexting and face-saving
5. authority conception
6. nonverbal communication behavior
7. time conception
These seven items form the acronym LESCANT.
according to their own culture. This, in turn, may
make it difficult to accept or even to understand those
views held by other cultures.
2.1 Issues of Environment: There are five major
areas of attitudes of a nation's physical characteristics
and natural resources which result in cultural environmental setting. These are:
1. climate
2. topography
3. population size
4. population density
5. the relative availability of natural resources
1. Language: Language is most important but sometimes it emerges as a barrier in an intercultural setting.
Difficulties with language fall basically into three
categories: gross translation problems, the problems
in conveying delicate distinctions from language to
language, and cultural-based variations among
speakers of the same language.
These five sources of environmental differences arise
when people communicate on a wide spectrum of
business-related subjects. Notions of transportation
and logistics, settlement, and territorial organization
are affected by topography and climate.
In English, for example, the mild difference between
the words "misinterpret" and "misunderstand" can
prove significant in a sensitive situation because both
the words carry different meaning and should be used
appropriately. Similar example is to be found in words
“wedding” and “marriage” since wedding is the ceremony and marriage is the bond which people share
after their wedding.
Now population size and the availability of natural
resources influence each nation's view toward export
or domestic markets. The United States and China, for
example, both have massive domestic markets and are
rich in natural resources. Both nations export out of
choice and foreign markets in such countries are seen
as secondary markets with a cultural emphasis on
domestic markets. By contrast, Switzerland, with neither a large domestic population nor abundant natural
resources, is culturally oriented toward export with
foreign markets as their primary markets and the domestic Swiss market is considered as comparatively
negligible secondary market. Population density and
space used also influences the development of different cultural perceptions depending upon how space
and materials are used. Thus, how people lay out or
use office space, domestic housing, and buildings in
general shifts from nation to nation. For example, in
many nations the size, layout, and furnishings of a
business office communicate a message. The message
communicated, however, varies from nation to nation.
Much more obvious example would be the contrast
between the U.S. or French executive office and the
"open system" offices of Japan. In the open system
office, Japanese department heads have no individual
offices at all. Instead, their desks are simply one of
numerous other desks placed in a regularly patterned
arrangement in a large open area. No partitions are
used between the desks at all and no individual offices
exist. Yet each person in this less open system office
is strategically placed in a way that communicates his
or her rank and status just as surely as the U.S. or
French individual office system. Thus, the department
heads' desks are normally placed at a point farthest
from the door where the department heads can view
their whole department easily at a glance. Moreover,
Now dialectical differences within the same language
often create gross errors. One frequently cited example of how variations within a single language can
affect business occurred when a U.S. deodorant manufacturer sent a Spanish translation of its slogan to their
Mexican operations. The slogan read "if you use our
deodorant, you won't be embarrassed." The translation, however, which the Mexican-based Englishspeaking employees saw no reason to avoid, used the
term "embarazada" to mean "embarrassed." This provided much amusement to the Mexican market,
as "embarazada" means "pregnant" in Mexican Spanish.
Finally, national prejudices and class distinctions are
often reinforced thorough sociolinguistics—the social
patterning of language. For example, due to regional
prejudice and racism certain accents in the United
States are associated with urban areas (e.g., a Bronx
accent), with rural regions (e.g., an Appalachian accent), or race (e.g., Black English). Similarly, some
cultures use sociolinguistics to differentiate one economic class from another. Thus, in England, distinct
accents are associated with the aristocracy and the
middle and lower classes. These distinctions are often
unknown by foreigners.
2. Environment and Technology: The ways in which
people use their resources often shifts drastically from
culture to culture. Most people have their own ways of
looking at the environment and they use technology
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further status may be indicated by placement near a
window. Now if we unaware with this understanding
then we will definitely misinterpret the message and
as a result will be lost.
es honesty. On the other hand, the Japanese avoid eye
contact as a sign of disrespect. Generally, people
frown or cry when they are sad or angry. But the Chinese, the Japanese and the Indonesians are quieter. In
Arab and Iranian cultures, people express sadness and
anger openly and they shout and mourn very loudly.
Different cultures assign different meanings to colors.
In China red color signifies wealth but in France and
in the United Kingdom it symbolizes masculinity. On
the other hand, the Japanese assign red color the
meaning of anger and in many African countries this
color means death or wickedness. The United States
gives to green color the meaning of capitalism and
envy. In Ireland, it signifies patriotism, in Egypt
strength and fertility and among the Japanese it signifies energy and youth. In Europe, black color mostly
means death. However, in parts of Malaysia, this color signifies courage. In much of Europe, in the United
States and in many Muslim and Hindu countries,
white color is the symbol of purity and peace. On the
contrary, in Japan and other Asian countries, it symbolizes death and mourning. In Iran, blue color is a
symbol of something negative. In Egypt it means truth
and virtue and in Ghana it is a sign of happiness. Yellow color symbolizes richness and authority in China
and joy and wealth in Egypt. In the United States,
yellow color is a symbol of lack of courage and caution. I have only written about some of various meanings of colors in different cultures.
2.2 Issues of Technology: Generally, cultures may be
divided into three approaches toward technology: (1)
control; (2) subjugation, and (3) harmonization.
In control cultures, such as those of northern Europe
and North America, technology is viewed as an innately positive means for controlling the environment.
For example, if a road approaches a mountain in a
control culture, a tunnel is blasted through the mountain. If the tunnel collapses, the cultural view is that
the technology was inadequate to the task and needs
to be improved.
In subjugation cultures, such as those of central Africa
and southwestern Asia, the existing environment is
viewed as positive and technology is viewed with
some skepticism. If a road approaches a mountain, the
road may simply stop at the mountain. If a tunnel is
used and does collapse, the cultural view is that the
very idea of going through the mountain was misguided, not that the technology was inadequate.
In harmonization cultures, such as those common in
many Native American cultures and some East Asian
nations, a balance is attempted between the use of
technology and the existing environment. In these
cultures, neither technology nor the environment are
innately good and members of such cultures see themselves as part of the environment in which they live
being neither subject to it nor master of it.
Now there are a lot of examples of nonverbal gestures
which have different meanings in different cultures.
The “Ring” or “OK” gesture indicates “Everything is
OK” in English speaking countries. In Japan it can
mean money. In France, it can be interpreted as zero
or nothing. In Indonesia, this gesture also means zero.
This gesture is used in some Mediterranean countries
to imply that a man is homosexual.
3. Social Organization: Social organizations are often culturally determined. One must take care not to
assume that the view held in one's own culture is universal on such issues which are reflecting the culture's
social organization, educational values, class structure
and social mobility, job status and economic stratification, religious.
4. Contexting and Face-Saving: Communication
largely depends upon the context in which the communication is set. The more information sender and
receiver share in common, the higher the context of
the communication and the less necessary to communicate through words or gestures. Communication,
then, can be seen as being high or low in contexting.
Edward T. Hall was the first person to coin the term
"contexting." Hall has divided context into two categories, “High context and low context.”
There are many cultural variations in different social
organizations based on nonverbal communication.
Different cultures use different systems of understanding facial expressions, colors, gestures, special relations, touch, silence, physical appearance and treatment of time.
Even though some facial expressions may be similar
across cultures but their interpretations are different
from culture to culture. These differences of interpretation may lead to conflict. In Japan, when someone
dies in family, they smile. That means that they are in
grief. For a Westerner, it will be a confusing situation.
In Asian cultures smiling is used to cover emotional
pain. Americans think that direct eye contact express-
Table.1 illustrates the list of countries according to
their cultural context
High Context
Mid Context
Low Context
Countries
Countries
Countries
Japan
England
United States
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China
Mexico
Greece
The Arab
countries
Brazil
Italy
France
One of the most apparent differences is the interpretation of dress. The message given by polished shoes,
for instance, could easily be lost on a culture in which
sandals are the standard footwear. Similarly, a woman's decision to wear her best suit would be lost in a
culture in which no women wear business suits. People often struck to cross cultural ethnocentric prejudices regarding what they believe as proper dress.
Thus, a European or American may condemn a Saudi
or Iranian in traditional dress. Similarly, a Saudi or
Iranian may consider immoral the bare face, arms, and
legs of a European or American woman in business
attire.
Denmark
Sweden,
Norway
Germany
The Germanspeaking portion
of Switzerland
Korea
In high context cultures, the emphasis on words chosen in general and on the written word in particular is
relatively weak since words provide only one aspect
of the context of the communication. As a result, how
something is said matters more than what is actually
said. By contrast, in low context cultures, the actual
words matter more than the intended meaning. What
is actually said—and especially what is actually written—matters more than the context in which it was
said. In low context cultures, written agreements are
seen as binding while personal promises are viewed as
nonbinding. In direct contrast, high context cultures
are more likely to hold a flexible understanding of
written agreements while holding personal promises
to be more binding. High context cultures, as a result,
find that their interpersonal behavior is governed by
individual interpretation (that is, the context of the
relationship) while low context cultures find that their
relationships are dictated by external rules.
Some kinesics behavior may carry distinctly different
meanings in more than one culture. In such cases, all
parties recognize the gesture, but interpret it differently. During George Bush's visit to Australia while he
was president, he held up two fingers in a V sign. In
both countries the symbol is widely understood, but in
the United States the "V" symbol is a sign of good
will, victory, and unity, while in Australia it carries a
vulgar, sexual meaning.
Haptics or touching behavior also reflects cultural
values. In a generally non haptic society such as Japan, touching another person in a business setting
even with a handshake is traditionally considered
wrong and foreign. The United States itself is a fairly
non haptic society, particularly between men. In many
cultures men often walk with arms interlinked or hold
hands while in U.S., males doing this might be considered as homosexual.
5. Authority Conception: Different cultures often
view the distribution of authority in their society differently. The view of authority in a given society affects communication significantly as it reinforce how
a message will be received which is based on the relative status or rank of the message's sender to its receiver. Therefore in a relatively decentralized environment people generally pay attention to a person
based on how convincing an argument he or she puts
forth, regardless of that person's rank or status within
the organization or society at large. By contrast, in a
highly centralized culture, a relatively high-ranking
individual’s words are taken very seriously, even if
one disagrees.
6. Nonverbal Behavior: Among the most varying
dimensions of intercultural communication is nonverbal behavior. Knowledge of a culture represents only
a portion of what that person has communicated.
Much of nonverbal communication may be broken
down into six areas: dress; kinesics, or body language;
eye contact; haptics, or touching behavior; proxemics,
or the use of body space; and paralanguage. Any one
of these areas communicates significant information
nonverbally in any given culture.
7. Temporal Conception: Cultural communication is
also affected by cross-cultural differences in temporal
conception or the understanding of time. Mostly in
U.S. and Northern European countries, people take
time as inflexible, a thing to be divided, used, or wasted. But this is not, however, a universally accepted
view. How one uses time, may profoundly affect the
way in which social and professional interactions are
conducted in various parts of the world. Now most
cultures fall into two types of temporal conception.
The first type includes preset schedules in which the
schedules take priority over personal interaction. Edward Hall coined the term "monochronic" to describe
this system of temporal organization. By contrast,
those who follow what Hall termed as "polychronic"
temporal organization, ranks personal involvement
and completion of existing contacts above the demands of preset schedules.
The influence of temporal conception on communication is widespread. This is further complicated by the
fact that no culture is exclusively polychronic or
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monochronic. Members of any culture lean to one
direction or the other, although the cultures as a whole
may organize their thoughts and conceive of time
more one way or the other. The central issue here is to
keep alert to communication differences that would
indicate that one culture was more monochronic or
polychronic in orientation, and to adapt one's communication strategies accordingly.
When travelling to other societies, it is important to
understand that there are likely to be significant gender differences in paralanguage in addition to distinctions in clothes and ornamentation. In North America,
for instance, men generally prefer face to face conversation, and maintain direct eye contact longer. In contrast, women often converse standing side by side but
closer together than in typical of men. Male handshakes lean to be firmer. North America women usually are more reserved in their use of bold gestures but
use more facial expressions (especially smiles) and
are more skilled in interpreting them.
Study of Nonverbal Communication in Gender
Aspects: How does our gender affect us in our intercultural interactions? Gender has a great influence on
all sides of human communication and raises many
profound social matters.
In Japan, women most often speak with an artificially
high pitch, especially when conversing with men in a
business or official setting. This is part of the general
deference traditionally shown to men. However, recent research indicates that the pitch of female voices
has begun to lower. It has been suggested that this
change is connected with the increased economic and
political power of Japanese women.
There is communication specialization between men
and women, men being more accurate with vocal and
women with visual communication. Research has
shown that girls display more nurturance communication behaviour than boys and this would account for a
higher sensitivity to nonverbal cues (Bullies & Horn,
1995).
It has been suggested women’s lower status may negatively influence perceptions of power and therefore
hinder credibility and persuasiveness. Although gender was not investigated in a study by Aguinis,
Simonsen and Pierce (1998), it was found that nervous facial expressions and indirect eye contact hindered perceptions of power and credibility.
Do males and females interact accordingly to different
nonverbal agendas? Communication between men and
women is considered to be cross-cultural communication and women and men are from different planets.
They speak as if they have different dialects and
sometimes don’t even understand each other completely. Therefore, in the peculiar situation, what thing
helps us to understand the opposite sex? The answer is
nonverbal communication.Some gender aspects of
nonverbal communication are reliable across cultures.
For example, research has shown that the emotions of
enjoyment, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise
are expressed in similar ways by people around the
world. Differences remain in surface with respect to
which emotions are acceptable to display in various
cultural settings, and by whom. For example, it may
be more socially acceptable in some setting in the
United States for women to show fear, but not anger,
and for men to display anger, but not fear.
According to Becky Michele Mulvaney it is useful to
view gender communication as a form of intercultural
communication. First, the author considers that gender
is both an influence on and a product of communication. In short, Mulvaney highlights the primary role
played by communication in gender issues. Second,
descriptions of some salient elements of intercultural
communication Mulvaney maintain that gender communication is a form of intercultural communication.
Finally, according to the author gender communication plays an important role in developing effective
intercultural communication skills.
In most Westernized countries it is considered normal
for two men to shake hands. In some Asian and Islamic countries it is considered normal for men to kiss
each other, either on the cheeks or on the lips. Some
countries also consider men holding hands to be normal. In most westernized countries men kissing or
holding hands in public would be viewed as homosexual
behaviour
(see,
http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body Language).
CONCLUSION: The studies show that inappropriate
nonverbal behaviours may cause potential conflicts in
intercultural communication. Intercultural communication refers to the communication between people
from different cultures. According to Samovar and
Porter (1991) intercultural communication occurs
whenever a message is produced by a member of one
culture for consumption by a member of another culture, and the message must be understood. Because of
cultural differences in these kinds of contacts, the
potential for misunderstanding and disagreement is
Islamic cultures generally don’t approve of any touching between opposite genders (even handshakes), but
consider such touching (including hand holding, hugs)
between members of the same sex to be appropriate.
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[(CPUH-Research Journal: 2015, 1(1), 17-24) Different Aspects of Intercultural Nonverbal Communication: A S….]
great. To reduce this risk, it is important to study intercultural communication.
7.
A culturally-fluent approach to conflict means working overtime to understand these and other ways
communication varies across cultures, and applying
these understandings in order to enhance relationships
across different cultures.
8.
Cultural communication research tends to focus on
understanding communication within one culture from
the insider’s points of view. Understanding crosscultural communication should be a prerequisite to
understanding intercultural communication because
cross-cultural communication looks at how people
from differing cultural backgrounds endeavor to
communicate. Thus, the core of cross-cultural communication is to establish and understand how people
from different cultures communicate with each other.
A new challenge for cultural fluency as a guide to
effective intercultural communication is to generate
approaches of investigation on how people from different cultures and speaking different languages actually influence each other in specific intercultural contexts.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
The role of the right strategy of intercultural communication is very important in avoiding misunderstanding. Globalization demands a greater need for intercultural contact and interdependence. People of this
globalizing world are obliged to redesign intercultural
communication to achieve effectual intercultural
communication proficiency.
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